The Nuremberg City Hall

The story of the Nuremberg city hall, like the elaboate history of the Lübeck rathaus, covers many centuries, alterations, style changes and the almost universal fate of such buildings in the course of the Second World War: near total destruction.

The Great Hall was for a time the crown jewel of the interior of the Nuremberg city hall. Designed and decorated with paintings by Albrecht Dürer, the room had undergone several radical changes before the allied bombing reduced what was left to rubble. At the time of its completion, the mural was the largest of its kind in northern Europe.

Print of the great triumphal Procession mural by Dürer in the Nuremberg City Hall

Detail of the Triumphal Wagon

The Dürer Grand Hall, painted by Dürer 1521-1530, as seen in 1622

The Great Hall before 1945

The Nuremberg City Hall in 1945

In 1989 Michael Mathias Prechtl submitted designs for a new mural to be placed on the restored walls where the Dürer mural had been.

A huge controversy erupted, after which it was decided to leave the walls blank..

Plans for reconstructed Dürer mural, opening 2015

Video of History and Future Plans for the Durer Room and Mural (in German)